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We'll be talking a lot on
this course about how the way
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the public space,
the spaces we're in,
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makes a difference to
expressions of identity.
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But I wanted to particularly
pick up on something Sam said,
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about how we get
these identities.
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Because, in one
sense, we sort of
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have a choice of these
identities, or we feel
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we have a choice, that we can
choose which is important.
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And another way that
identity is part
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of a relationship
with other people
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so that, as I think the social
psychologists might say,
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there's an ingroup and
there's an outgroup.
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So how I feel depends on
some of those around us.
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How does that relationship - why
is that relationship important?
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You mean about
others constraining,
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in some way, what identities
we can have, or not have?
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Yeah, well, so one
way of looking at this
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is to say that identity,
although I've said that it's -
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psychologists would see it as
a way of representing yourself.
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So you could think of
this as being something
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in your head, something
that you think,
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you know, this is what I am.
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That's only part of the story.
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And actually, it's
not just a matter
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of what you think you are, but
a matter of your interactions
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with others.
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So of course other people are
always part of that equation.
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And being able to
act out, to perform,
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to enact your identities
is as important,
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if not more important, than
privately just thinking
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about it.
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So there are
certain identities -
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There's a public quality,
inherently, there's
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a sort of public
quality to identity,
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and it's the way that
you relate to others,
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and not just the way that
you think about yourself.
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So there are
certain identities -
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way that we're going to
express our identities -
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and we're going to think
about that public expression.
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And part the way we do that
public expression is going
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to be dependent upon how
we're imagining ourselves
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as against other people.
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So something like
our sexuality may
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be dependent upon the
context, where we're going on,
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and how we want to see
ourselves in relationship
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to other people.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I mean,
there are a variety
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of ways in which
people may decide
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to either enact their identities
or to keep them hidden.
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And enacting your identity has
a whole range of functions,
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you know.
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So, for example, you may want to
have your identity acknowledged
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by people who you
see as your ingroup.
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You want them to
accept you as a member,
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and therefore you behave
in a particular way.
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It may be that you
want to influence
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other members of your group.
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You want to persuade them, this
is what our group believes,
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this is what we should be doing.
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And in that case, you
will perform your identity
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in a certain way.
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You see politicians doing
this all of the time.
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That in all sorts of subtle,
and sometimes not so subtle
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ways they will try to
display their credentials
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as typical members of -
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Such as an American president.
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The debate they had in
the presidential election,
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about whether the
American president wears
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the little American
flag on his lapel,
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and what meaning that that had,
and how important that was.
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Precisely.
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So that's just one
example of why somebody
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might make their
identity public in order
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to be able to be seen by others
as genuinely of the group,
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and then for able to lead them.
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And there are all
sorts of reasons
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why people might want to
do that, in the same way,
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reasons why they might
not want to do that.
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And sometimes that backfires.
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I'm thinking, when you talked
about the American president,
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thinking of the case of
David Cameron and the pasty.
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Which backfired
on him as he tried
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to gain this sense of
a man of the people.
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But the fact, he mucked up his
own understanding of the pasty
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and where he bought it.
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That actually backfired on him,
showing exactly the opposite
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of what he intended to do.
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So it comes back to that point.
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It's relational, that
it is about recognition
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and acceptance of
another wider range of -
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Politicians are
particularly good example
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of how people are
continually thinking about
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how they express their
identity, because they
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want to be seen as encompassing.
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As a politician, I represent
you as a group of people.
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So the way you manifest
yourself in public
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is constantly being thought
about and controlled, so
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that you look like you
have a certain identity.
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But you also can't
claim any identity.
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If you claim one identity, it
will exclude other identities.
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You can claim
yourself as British,
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which encompasses
different dimensions,
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but as soon as you
say you're English,
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it excludes a sense of
Scottishness about it.
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And it also requires a
degree of recognition.
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I could tell people
I'm Scottish,
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but if other people don't
recognise that I haven't got
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a Scottish accent, or I haven't
got the credibility to be that
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- I have that identity.
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So having an identity is not
just something you can claim,
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it also needs to be
acknowledged, and recognised,
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and you come into that,
brought into that, ingroup,
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as Sam was talking about.
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Just a point I'd
like to pick up,
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I think this relational
thing is very important.
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And it's important
to bear in mind
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that at the same time
as we claim or perform
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a certain identity, we not
only do that for ourselves, we
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simultaneously constitute other
identities of those around us.
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So if I'm going to,
in this discussion,
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be a sociologist, that
immediately makes you
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an anthropologist more than
it does make you an Englishman
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or whatever else.
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So this kind of,
inside outside bit,
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where, simultaneously,
you constitute yourself,
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or a group, and an outside,
another group, or somebody
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else, an other, is kind of
important for the purposes
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of our discussion.
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And people will pick up on
elements of those identities
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all the time.
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So I'm someone - I'm an
English person that's
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lived in Ireland for 30 years,
and a lot of my own experiences
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in life have come through
living in Ireland.
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So in that sense I could feel
quite Irish, but I've been
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- I've had this English
accent all the way through it.
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So whatever I do in life,
whenever I go and engage,
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people understand me as
having an English background.
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So my constant life is
a bit of an engagement
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between an English
person who's lived
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for many years in Ireland.
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Thinking about the nature
of the public space
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and the public arena, how
come we see the public spaces
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that we move through
as important?
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What is it about the physicality
of those spaces which
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makes a difference to how
we might express identities?
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Some of it comes
back to the point
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that Sam made, at the
beginning of the conversation,
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about identity being
performed and enacted.
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And that implies a sense of
an individual doing something,
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but also there being
an audience for that.
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Now you could obviously have
an audience within house,
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within private space, but it's a
much more restricted and narrow
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audience.
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Once you move out of
that space, you've
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got a much wider audience to
interact with, perform to.
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So I think the public
space is an arena
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for collective
identities, a variety
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of collective identities,
being enacted.
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And if you think
about public spaces
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as streets and roads and
squares and shopping centres
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and those sorts
of spaces, there's
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certain things
that people pick up
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on as collective identities,
which are very general ones.
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You know, as male or
female, that you pick up on.
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Whereas your identity
doesn't necessarily -
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or your national identity
- doesn't necessarily -
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It's important, yeah.
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- and you have to
do something else
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if you want to emphasise
your national identity.
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Whether you - and here
in somewhere like Belfast
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- if you chose to wear a
Rangers top or Celtic top,
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that would give a
slightly different
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- another element to
your public identity.
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This is a male or a female, and
we know from that reading, that
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- but it also requires
an understanding, a way
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to interpret those identities.
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It's not - people are not
shouting out verbally,
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they're shouting out through
their physical appearance.
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So you start to think
about other elements that
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start to kick in to play
and to how you - again,
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using Sam's term - how you
represent your identity.
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If you just stand there.
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Because there are
sort of, usually,
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a set of acceptable
social rules as to how
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you express an identity.
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So if I'm deciding that
I'm doing something
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like going to the beach,
then I can turn up
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in a pair of swimming
trunks and everybody will
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- that will be seen
as quite acceptable.
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If I turn up to a lecture at
the university in the morning,
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wearing that same pair
of swimming trunks,
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I mean, it's the same
outfit that I wore the day
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before at the beach,
I'm now standing
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in front of a whole
lot of students.
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It probably wouldn't
be seen as a -
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so we've got a set
of social rules
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that are always around us, to
which - to a certain extent
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would be conforming.